The story of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma : "the biggest little city in the world", Part 1

Author: Kerr, W. F. (William F.); Gainer, Ina
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 698


USA > Oklahoma > Oklahoma County > Oklahoma City > The story of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma : "the biggest little city in the world" > Part 1


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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24



Gc 976.602 Ok46k v.1 1726997


M. L


REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION


ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02293 5081


W. F. KERR


1 - , 4


The Story of Oklahoma City Oklahoma 1.1


"The Biggest Little City in the World"


Written and Edited by W. F. KERR Of the Oklahoma Historical Society AND INA GAINER Of The Oklahoma City Times Editorial Force


VOLUME I


1922 THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO


F 92764.4


.


30- 1943


1726997


CONTENTS


PART I RELEVANT APPROACHES


Them Haleyon Days, Dr. A. C. Scott.


13


Introductory


15


A Cottage for Two 33


The Founding of Oklahoma City


61


PART II


THIE SPREAD OF THE YEARS


The Lot Jumpers. S1


Government Established 99


The Second Opening 121


Boomers Active Again. 133


141


The Active Ten Thousand


151


Choctaw Railroad Enters


161


Fusion and Free Silver


169


The Seekers of Pie 179


On Trail of the Volunteer- 189


Conneil Versus Congress


201


Franchises and Bond Sales


211


Oil and Another Opening. 221


More Business, Less Society 229


In Earnest Abont Statehood 241


253


Sidestepping an Issue. 263


A Gold Pen and a Quill. 273


Polities, Prejudices and Victory


283


New Jerusalem Approved. 303


Coming of the Packers 313


The Capital Achieved 329


A Charter Adopted 345


A Fight Against Expenses 359


A Preacher's Farewell 373


The Central Hundred. 389


Passing of Pioneers 403


The Food Strikers. 415


The City Goes to War 427


Helping to Win the War 445


Prosperity and High Prices. 465


The Results of War 479


Tiding Over 491


V


In Bih and Tucker at St. Louis


PAGE


Dream of a Commonwealth


.


vi


CONTENTS


PART HI


RESUMES, REVIEWS AND CONTRIBUTIONS


PAGE


The Old Home Town. 509


Development of Social and Club Life, by Irene Bowers Sells 523


The Fight for the Capital 5-17


Schools of Eighty-Nine and Their Development, by Mrs. Fred Sutton. 559 569


Vision, Leadership and Faith, by William M. Jenkins.


Oklahoma City's Part in the World War, by Gen. Roy V. Hoffman. 573


A Tribute to Oklahoma, by Sidney Clarke. 583


Making Beauty Spots, by C. A. MeNabb 587


Captain Couch, First Mayor, by H. C. Evans 601


Character of C. G. Jones, by O. P. Sturm. 605


Character of Henry Overholser, hy Elmer E. Brown 615


Seminoles and Colonists, by J. L. Brown 625


Artieles of Confederation. 635


Milling and Grain 641


Business Women's Club. 647


City an Oil Center 651


Gas and Electricity 667


The Telephone Business 669


Lot Titles Investigated. 675


PART IV IN MEN'S MEMORIES


A Propitious Monday 679


In Camp Oklahoma. 687


A Pioneer's Recollections 689


The Oklahoma City Club


Bill Starts a Graveyard 699


703


Colcord Has an Idea. 709


Pioneering in Journalism 711


Hanging Pants and Song Pants


713


A Rushing Bread Business 715


"A Bad Man from Texas' 717


A Lot Jumper Wins.


719


Snaking Houses at Night. 721


For Better or Worst. 723


"Tails Up" Wins a Bride 725


Medical Society Formed


727


The First Newspaper 729


731


The Post Trader's House


PART V MISCELLANEOUS


The City's Constitution 735


The Organic Act. 781


First Opening Proclamation 823


Oklahoma Enabling Act 831


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ILLUSTRATIONS


PAGE


W. F. Kerr Frontispiece


Former Presidents of the Chamber of Commerce. 17


Residence of E. H. Cooke. 25


Residential Street 25 Oklahoma City's First Settlers 35


Original Site of Oklahoma City


41


A Group of Pioneers.


47


Two and a Beauty Spot 55


Where the Ranch Stock Watered 55


Group of Pioneers. 63


Early Settlers 67


Captain W. L. Couch 71


First Post Office of Oklahoma 75


83


Oklahoma City on April 24, 1889


83


Dr. A. J. Beale.


89


View of Oklahoma City in 1889


95


Captain A. B. Hammer.


101


Present Site of Culbertson Building, Broadway and Grand Avenue.


109


American National Bank Building


123


Home of the Daily Oklahoman


123


W. J. Gault


1:25


O. A. Mitscher


139


Leslie P. Ross.


145


Frank MeMaster 150


153


Main Street, Oklahoma City, 1889 157


Captain E. H. DeFord. 163


171


J. P. Allen.


181


Richard Caffrey


191


Wheeler Park


197


Lee Van Winkle


203


Clifton George


207


First National Bank Building 215


Sectional View of St. Anthony's Hospital 225


State University Hospital 225


The Baum Building 235


vii


Oklahoma City in 1889, Before the Run.


D. W. Gibbs. 117


Nelson Button


Charles G. Jones


٠٠


viii


ILLUSTRATIONS


PAGE


The Continental Building


235


Farmers National Bank. 245


First Methodist Church. 255


Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. 255


Dr. J. F. Messenbaugh. 265


Oklahoma County Courthouse and Jail 275


Henry M. Scales 285


St. Luke's M. E. Church, South.


291


Federal Building 297


View at State Fair Park. 297


First Presbyterian Church. 305


Former Occupants of the Colcord Building Site. 305


Entrance to the Oklahoma National Stock Yards. 315


Pens at the Oklahoma National Stock Yards 315


Temple B'nai Israel. 323


323


Daniel V. Lackey


331


Main Street of the Bugey Days.


335


Broadway, Looking North. 1910.


341


Whit M. Grant .


347


Central High School


351


Carnegie Library 355


355


Maywood Presbyterian Church 361


First Baptist Church 367


Residence of W. R. Ramsey 367


First English Lutheran Church 375


First Christian Church 375


Skirvin Hotel 381


Oklahoma State Capitol. 388


First Week between California and Grand Avenues 391


View of Skyscrapers from the Wholesale District 395


Residence of C. F. Coleord 399


Residence of If. Overholser


399


Edward Overholser 405


Epworth Methodist Church (Originally Epworth U'niversity)


411


Residence of C. P. Site: 417


Mercantile Building


429


Security Building


429


Catholic Church 439


Byron D. Shear. 447


View on Grand Avenue Looking East from Terminal Building 453


Lakeside Golf and Country Club 459


J. C. Walton 467


Salvation Army Home. 473


Broadway, Looking North, in 1921 481


Y. M. C. A. Building 4.87


Packing Plant of Morris & Company


Huckins Hotel


ix -x


ILLUSTRATIONS


PAGE


Ilome of Oklahoma City Club ( Erection begum in 1922) 493


Main Street of an Early Day. 511


Business District from an Airplane 517


Cheyennes and Arapahes Counseling for Cherokee Outlet 525


Chiefs of Cheyennes and Arapahos. 533


Tradesmen's National Bank Building 543


Gloyd-Halliburton Building 553


Liberty National Bank Building 563


The Guaranty Bank


563


Gen. Roy V. Hoffman


575


O'Neil Park 589


Stiles Park


593


Residence of Gen. Roy V. Hoffman


593


Entrance to Wheeler Park.


597


St. Panl's Episcopal Church


607


Patterson Building


617


Santa Fe Depot the Morning after the Run. 627


An Early Day View. 627


Grain Exchange Building. 640


Plant of Oklahoma City Mill and Elevator Company 6-43


Plant of the Plansifter Milling Company 643


Magnolia Petroleum Company Building 653


Scene in Oil Refining District .. 659


Section of Refining Plant of Choate Oil Corporation 659


Home of the Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company 666


Home of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company 671


The Morning before the Run 651


Captain D. F. Stile- 686


II. C. Watton. 695


Plant of Liberty Cotton Oil Company 705


West Main Maternity Sanitarinm. 737


Terminal Building of the Oklahoma Railway Company 745


Masonie Temple 755


The Coliseum 755


Home of Hahn Undertaking Company


765


Mount Saint Mary's Academy 775


Classen Junior High School 775 Security National Bank 785


Empress Theater 795


Orpheum Theater 795 Second Presbyterian Church 805


Christian Science Church. 805


Momnent to Soldier Dead, Fairlawn Cemetery 813


Coleord Building $25


HIerskowitz Building 825


Southwest National Bank Building 833


Liberty Theater 843


XI -XII


PART I RELEVANT APPROACHES


.


The Story of Oklahoma City


"THEM HALYCON DAYS" . BY A. C. SCOTT


When'er I think of '89, its haleyon days around me shine ; its days of spring divinely fair, its days when sand drifts filled the air; its days so hot the hair they'd eurl, its days so cold the snow would whirl, stinging against the window panes, and freezing on the icy plains: days when the sand filled Main street full. and days when Main street was a pool; days and days of every kind, that nowhere else on earth you'd find.


But what did we for weather care? We all were young, the world was fair; something would happen every day, and not in just the usual way. What booted it that lots were jumped, and in the fracas some one bumped: that Seminole and Kickapoo kept hell a-poppin' all night through ? Throughout it all we sang and danced, and Sundays to the Weaver pranced, ostensibly of course to dine, but in reality to shine, in raiment exquisitely new, to let the proletariat view-the ladies decked from top to toe (much more than they are now. I trow). in silks and satins, unseen hose, the men all moulded in their clothes.


To ice cream socials, too. we went, to that extreme on pleasure bent : though chaperoned with eagle eyes, love "car- ried on" with small disguise, and many a marriage altar fine. was just a dream of Eighty-Nine. And who'll forget those autumn days, all shrouded in their purple haze, as if all na- ture's course stood still, to put away the coming ill? But when grim winter came at last. fast riding on his borcan blast, our flimsy shacks shook in the gale, the howling winds drove sleet and hail. But did we whine, or knock. or wail ? We took the hanner and the nail. and boarded up the shrick- ing eraeks, and papered the inside with tacks.


And while the winter ripped and roared. we served upon


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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY


our festal board such dainties and such viands rare that lords might envy us our fare. Oh, who'll forget those wondrous eats-the market places on our streets with long festoons of luscious quail, or prairie chicks and cotton tail, of squirrels gray and squirrels red, of mallards dropped from overhead; of pinioned deer with spreading fronds, of turkey gobblers bathed in bronze-not them that strutted barnyard floors, but lived in nature's out-of-doors ? Oh, well. I reckon it is best, that we've outgrown that far-off West; but sometimes when I'm tired and bored, run down by auto and by Ford, I take a backward look and say, as one did say who's gone his way, "Of all the times I've ever seed, them was the halycon days indeed."


INTRODUCTORY


A conclusion that organized effort is ninety-nine per cent responsible for the present stage of maturity of Oklahoma City is inescapable after one has made a detailed study of out- standing events of these thirty and two years. This statement . may bear a shade of triteness: it may exhibit the carmarks of the prime principle of city building written into books on that subject ; it may be casually dismissed as a foregone conclusion reached by regimes and generations of constructionists since the peopling of the Middle West began; but, in this instance, it is re-enlivened and re-envisaged for a purpose of compari- son. It is a notable fact that some heavily peopled communi- ties of the Southwest have attained levels of municipal supremacy directly and almost solely as a result of the en- deavors of a few superior men associated for business pur- poses. Their number is small to be sure and their accomplish- ments are marvelous exceptions to the well-established rule of organization. Nearly every prosperous community has had" its foundation laid by a few men associated for business pur- poses, but eventually masterful things have been accomplished by a combination of several of such associations whose pur- pose was beyond immediate individual profit and involved the common weal. This is the fundamental principle, of course, of society, of cooperative education, of religions enterprises, and of free government.


The mental largeness of a few men, the money-making capacity of a few men, the diekering and negotiating instinet of a few men, and the promotion predilection of a few men, -- ungrouped, unorganized, established in shacks and shanties, unrestricted by conventions, squatted on a windswept sage- grassed plain .- ran in grooves ent with their own pieks and shovels; and, when there was increased light upon possibili- ties, these grooves diverged and merged into channels and channels confluenced into streams and streams emptied by their own predestined bent into this sea of business, religions,


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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY


social, educational and political metropolitanism. That, in short, is the history of Oklahoma City. And it teaches that divergences and confluences are essential to the filling of the sea and the replenishment and maintenance of its waters. In- dividual efforts of pioneers produced gratifying results, each separately as a business enterprise. We are pleased to re- fleet the honor that is due them, and frequently we are con- strained to assert that but for them the entire history of the city's twenty latest years might have been so different that perhaps a competitor would have outshone it in glory. In- dividual efforts were substructure material. A few of them could have brought the hundred thousand here; it is not likely that they would have. Inevitably the drawing power lay in concentration, and the hundred thousand came when the draw- ing power was created. The drawing power was the Chamber of Commerce, and to that body this work is dedicated.


Oklahoma city originally was nature favored. Perhaps the thought entered the minds of none, or if any but a few, in the first raw, undisciplined years, that the lines of common- wealths would be so manipulated that the city would lie with- in five miles of the geographical center of a state. It was with- in a five-hour horse trot of the border of Indian Territory and therefore far to one side and close to a river-arched corner of what everybody predicted would become the eventual Okla- homa Territory : that is. the territory as geographies pictured it after all the Indian reservations west of Indian Territory had been opened for settlement. But Nature and the eighty- niners were not in cahoots, because the eighty-niners were ignorant of the polities of the future. If Oklahoma Territory had become a separate state, Oklahoma City. geographically considered, would have had small call for the capital, which Congress already had located at Guthrie: nor would Guthrie have been seenre in that honor. This very fact accounts in part for a majority of the residents of Oklahoma City in later years, disregarding political alliances on the capital issue and standing unitedly in favor of a single state to be formed out of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. Nature re- vealed itself in consideration of that issue.


In view of its geographical location, and in disregard of political eventualities, it was destined to become the inter-


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S. M. Gloyd, Anton II. Classen, Ed S. Vaught, G. B. Stone, George Frederickson, T. D. Turner, C. F. Coleord FORMER PRESIDENTS OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE


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Vol. 1-2


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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY


section point of two trunk lines of railroad. Several years before the opening in 1889 the Santa Fe had constructed a line north and south through the Territory that entered near Arkansas City, Kansas, and passed into Texas near Gaines- ville. This line lay twenty-five to thirty miles east of the one hundredth meridian and in general it separated the prairies of the west from the timber lands of the east. It was a divi- sion mark between the "short-grass" country and the "sticks." Settlement of the west side of the original Indian Territory, or the Unorganized Territory as it was later desig- nated, of course demanded railroad facilities from the east as well as from the north and south. Probable connections with Texas Panhandle points were in early years not a matter of vital concern, for the wind-stripped Plains were vet climati- vally discredited. One of the first organized industrial efforts of the city resulted in its securing a line of the Rock Island railroad that built eventually from Memphis, Tennessee, to Amarillo, Texas, and split the two territories wide open from east to west as the Santa Fe had done from north to south. The Rock Island, originally called the Choctaw, did not come in a night, nor did it come gracefully and with facility. It came after much diekering and much bickering, after fights between ambitious communities, one of which was Guthrie, Oklahoma City's earliest, most formidable and longest-lived commercial and political rival, and after the travail of hard work and sleepless nights. But when it came, Oklahoma City's commercial position was for the time being secure. It was of debatable tenure, however, for a trunk line of the Rock Island system had paralleled the Santa Fe through the State, passing within thirty miles of the city on the west, and on it, nearly due west of the city, was founded the town of El Reno. This town early gave evidences of rivalry with Oklahoma City and those evidences were enhanced many fold when the Men- phis-Amarillo line was made to intersect the Rock Island trunk line at that point. And this incipient rivalry, more menacing than any the city had faced, explains why the city's big men in the '90s so vigorously celebrated the entrance of the Frisco from the northeast. The entrance of the Frisco, indeed, was the most important event of a decade, if not the one elinching and determining event in all the city's history.


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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY


Sedate, silent and unobtrusive Nature, perhaps better identi- fied by the term Geography, again favored a city wavering and debating in insecurity. In this instance the favor was doubly purposeful, for the railroad builders foresaw the opening to settlement of the big Kiowa and Comanche Indian country, situated in the southwestern part of the territory, and Okla- homa City lay on a direct route between Sapulpa, the Frisco terminus, and the central section of the Kiowa and Comanche reservation.


In a sense, political subdivisions were of secondary con- cern, in the view of the eighty-niners, for the city was located in the center of a fertile agricultural section that embraced contiguous territory of part of the new Oklahoma and of na- tions of Indian Territory and other Indian reservations soon to be opened. They entertained a mild trust in the Santa Fe. expecting active cooperation of its immigration and coloniza- tion departments. The Santa Fe, however, could scarcely be a respecter of municipalities on its line, and the eighty-niners early learned that self-dependence. self-assertiveness and the boldest sort of influential preponderance of effort would get results.


When the coming of the Frisco eliminated El Reno and Shawnee as contenders for municipal supremacy. only Guthrie remained an antagonist. She was a formidable antagonist, be- canse she was the political pot boiler of the Territory, the capi- tal, and the receiver and dispenser of information that came out of Washington where lay the converged ends of the strings of government. She was influential in Congress and in the Governmental departments. During the greater part of Okla- homa City's creative era the republicans were in control of the National Government and Guthrie remained rock-ribbed re- publican, whereas normally Oklahoma City was democratic. It was the seat of democratic organization in the Territory. the chief convention center and the home of several of the party's most astute leaders. Here was published the leading democratie newspaper, The Daily Oklahoman, while in Guth- rie Frank Greer ramrodded the official month-piece of the republican party. The Oklahoma State Capital. Political enmity ever was perceptible. Almost equally as formidable as Guthrie's political influence was its power to command


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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY


railroad investment. During the years that Oklahoma City was pulling tooth and nail for two strategical lines Guthrie was making itself the snug center of a web of no less strategi- eal but less influential and less competitive lines. Six short branches were laid into the capital from as many points along the Santa Fe, Rock Island and Frisco trunks. It looked definitely and permanently secure. Its population grew to over fifteen thousand and always for many years it was a hubbub of business and political commotion.


These skeleton faets will assist the reader to more fully appreciate how extraordinary were the accomplishments of Oklahoma City in that period between the entrance of the Frisco and the removal of the state capital. To seeure the capital Oklahoma City knew that Statehood first was essential. Although an attempt was made in the early '90s to have the Legislature declare Oklahoma City the capital. the matter was permitted to remain in abeyance while the overshadowing issue of statehood was given supreme attention. Had Guthrie been given an opportunity to vote on the question of state- hood, doubtless a considerable majority would have favored two states. On the other hand a preponderating majority in Oklahoma City would have favored a single state. The erea- tion of a single state was the greatest boon that Congress could confer upon the people of the Territories, and it was the one act necessary to assure supremacy to Oklahoma City.


Whether one is a political partisan, affiliated this way or that, does not alter a majority opinion here existing that the city's leanings toward the faith of the democratic party counted for an almost incalculable lot in the capital contro- versy. The conjoining of Indian Territory with Oklahoma Territory gave the democrats of the state a majority of about twenty-five thousand. Political leaders in that party natu- rally were considerate of the claims of a democratic stronghold for capital honors. This consideration was intensified during the first campaign when Charles N. Haskell, the democratic nominee for governor, most bitterly denounced the Guthrie oligarchy and several individual members thereof: and, in advocating a "Jim Crow" law, with characteristic sarcasm and invective, accused republican leaders of Guthrie of har- boring a large negro population for political purposes. Un-


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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY


questionably exaggerations and unqualified falsehoods gained currency during the campaign, and these are not condoned in this screed, but the burden and the bulk of events tended to- ward both political and commercial repudiation of Guthrie. and that fact the most partisan reader is entitled to know. With the democrats in control of the state government it was virtually a foregone conclusion that the huge democratie ma- jority in the state would, when opportunity was presented. take the capital away from Guthrie.


There was more of the South in Oklahoma City than in Guthrie and there was more tolerance among persons from widely separated sections of the United States. Kansas and Texas met on common ground, fought out their differences in a week or a month, and became neighbors and friends. Mich- igan locked horns with Massachusetts and in a magical amal- gamation the one abbreviated the stretch of his r's and the other interjected that letter into his alphabet. Here the best ideas and ideals of North, South, East and West were cast into the mill hopper and that which was best came out as acceptable food and that which was chaff was not even fed to swine. To some extent socially a similar milling process operated in Guthrie, but the politicians would have none of it. The politicians were in control of the destinies of the city and they countenanced no forgiveness, compromise or retreat. Oklahoma City's characteristie and widely advertised spirit of business and social communion was an asset of incalculable value not only in enterprises of municipal or state concern but in modifying and mollifying notions about it in faroff places of the Nation, and from hundreds of these faroff places came no small percentage of the hundred thousand.


After searching through the more or less browned and frazzled-edged records of these thirty-one years the author finds himself in possession of some opinions not previously entertained regarding both policies and men, and of more well- defined opinions about divers things than he formed when transpirings were current. We look upon an event more generously and more charitably after its recession into fifteen or twenty years of history than when the heat and the labor and the turmoil of the day were upon it. By the same vard- stick we measure men and organizations. We sift out the


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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY


faults of leaders, which usually we find were of minor degree, and land and extol their virtues. We forget their passions and even condone the law infractions of a few in consideration of their gennine worthiness as building and boosting citizens. We are penitent that we made unrighteous charges against associations of men. There are residents of the city today who speak unkindly of these associations out of a thimbleful of tattled information who twenty years from today will regret the speech and wonder how it came about that they permitted the progress train to go by without their taking passage.


The Chamber of Commerce reared Oklahoma City after it reached its teens. A small and unorganized group of men presented it for adoption when it was time to discard sailor collars and knee breeches, when its vocal organs were chang- ing and it had had some scattered and smattered conceptions of a career. Trained directorship was required. In short, if the metaphor may be changed, business prophets saw a long and steep hill to be ascended and they knew that even the first rest level could not be reached unless the team was re- eruited and every puller pulled his prorated share of the load.




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